The Black Hawk Bicycle Ban

One thing I'd like to point out is that although the news reports seem to imply that bikes are being singled out--and to some extent that applies to the wording of the ordinance--the ban applies to all non-motorized traffic.

I have no idea how many people in the Black Hawk area ride horses or use a horse drawn carriage, but the ban applies to them, too.

Thanks to Google Street View you can take a tour of most of the roads and see for yourself. That section of Hwy 279 is very narrow and there's little room for pedestrians let alone cyclists in some spots. I think Main Street could be a little crowded but with all the pedestrians and vehicle traffic, I think bikes would be fine. Bobtail Road is very narrow but if there's little traffic then it wouldn't be a big deal. After all, how many cyclists are we talking about?

Miners Mesa Road has a narrow should. Since it's a dead end, I wouldn't expect much vehicle traffic. There's no street view available for Silver Gulch Road.

From the news article:

Michael Copp, Black Hawk's city manager, the equivalent of chief executive of a local council in the UK, admitted there had not been any accidents to prompt the ban, just concern over potential collisions between motor vehicles and bicycles on 19th-century streets that were designed for horses and carriages.

Rhetorical question. If the streets were designed for non-motorized traffic then why is it being banned? Yeah, yeah, I know. But using that same justification they could just as easily ban large trucks, recreational vehicles, etc. And that's not going to happen.